Reason for sibling differences still unknown

July 08, 2007

We are going to order Chinese food for dinner. “Let's just order a bunch of stuff and then we can all share it,” suggests our eldest. Our youngest disagrees. “Let's just each order what we want and eat our own,” he replies. There's a metaphor here, I think to myself, that applies to more than food. It shows how siblings can be so totally different. “How did you decide to take that class next semester?” I will ask each child. “It sounded interesting,” one will answer. “It fills the requirement and someone said it was easy,” answers the other. “I needed something on Wednesdays,” the third will explain. I can mail each child a birthday gift. At least one will open it as soon as it arrives, while another would not consider opening it until the actual day. I have a toaster with four slots. Although I drop one slice of bread into each slot, set them the same and start them all at once, they will pop up at different times. In the same way, I have one child who can sleep away the day, while another is always awake with the sun. I made my kids, like my omelets, with all the same ingredients. My children have the same parents and share the same environment and yet, somehow, each slides out of the pan differently. My sister, brothers and I can compare memories of our childhood, but they are not identical. Like the sun shines differently into each room of my house, each of us has a different slant. I know what they say about gender and birth order. With two boys and a girl -- one youngest, one eldest and one middle child - my family is probably a Petri dish for scientific study. I have three children, blossoms on the same shrub, and yet they flower differently. A long time ago, my husband and I vowed never to compare. Of course, we noticed which child walked first and which child talked first. We noticed how each child blooms on a different schedule, but we won't praise one child at the expense of the other. One child is not better than the other, but each is better in different ways. And, yet, those differences make us marvel. My 21-year-old chose to live in New York. My 19-year-old would not consider a college farther than a weekend's drive from home. “I just like to be able to come home,” he explains. Even when my children leave, it's not because they are eager to say good-bye. It's simply sweeter when we hug hello. “I can't wait to come home,” says my 21-year-old before every vacation. And always, I cannot wait to see her. I think of this because my 23-year-old is gone again. For years, he hasn't come home without knowing when he is leaving again. He attended school near Boston and studied in Morocco. For two years now, as part of the Peace Corps, he is living in Ukraine. “Could you go any farther away?” I groused before he left, as we assembled a fleece wardrobe including detachable spikes for his boots. That's just his nature. One child eats one entree at a time. Another sees the world like a buffet; he has to sample everything at once. They both clean their plates. Teryl Zarnow writes about families for the Orange County Register and is the mother of three children, two boys and a girl. Write to her at The Orange County Register, P.O. Box 11626, Santa Ana, CA 92711. Or e-mail her at familywriter@aol.com.